7/2017
I guess patients out there want their doctor to look like Marcus Welby. How did he get to be in his 60’s and not have to be a “too-young looking” doctor? He must have spent the first 40 years in a crack distributing motorcycle gang until he looked old enough and then went to Medical School.
So, let’s look a little closer at this process. You know, Medical Schools require a “pre-med curriculum” in higher education (College) that may take 2-4 years depending on the Medical School. I won’t even consider those hours.
Be aware that I am using very conservative data here. I will point out a few deviations that I have taken.
Medical School is a 4-year curriculum. 50 hours a week for 50 weeks a year for 4 years comes to 10,000 hours. This does not include any remedial studies, tutoring (for you or by you) or anything else.
After Medical School, there is residency. This includes 1 year of internship (an antiquated term that doesn’t apply much anymore) and 3 years of practicing your chosen specialty under the tutelage of experienced doctors. I am only referring to primary care specialties; internal medicine, pediatrics, family medicine and emergency medicine. Here one spends 90 hours a week 50 weeks a year for 4 years, or 18,000 hours.
It has become common for primary care specialties to spend another 2 years in a fellowship with emphasis on an area of focused interest within the chosen primary care specialty. We will lighten up a little with 50 hours a week for 48 weeks a year for 2 years, or 4,800 hours.
So before that pimple-faced teenager-looking person that calls him/herself your doctor gets to step foot in a private practice or open his/her own shop, they have spent 32,800 hours learning how and practicing their skills to take care of you.
If we give this adolescent, say, 3 years in practice (a doctor is never without someone looking over their shoulder, but…) taking care of “their own” patients, at 50 hours a week for 48 weeks a year we now have a doctor with 40,000 hours of experience.
I’ve not included many hours of studying CME (continuing medical education) at home and on vacation that is required for certification for this or that which starts during the residency and continues for the career of the doctor.
In addition, one can look at a more defined measure. In the primary care specialties, a doctor will see about 30 patients every 12 hours worked. So by the time a doctor has finished the residency and fellowship, they have seen about 100,000 patients and will see 6,000 patients per year more, for every year of private practice.
A primary care doctor, in some respects is like a mechanic. The patient/customer comes to you with a problem, you figure it out, fix it and go on to the next one. In some respects, the doctor isn’t like a mechanic. The mechanic will work on one customer’s problem at a time until it is fixed. He/she may add another one or two while waiting on parts to arrive, for instance. In the primary care specialties, the doctor is seeing a new patient about every 12 minutes with sometimes as many as 10 overlapping. Thirty patients a day will present, at a minimum of 20 different problems.
It is estimated that a violinist has to have spent 1000 hours to master the instrument. It is estimated that 3000-5000 hours are required to play with a national level Orchestra.
Consider this the next time you have to see a pimple-faced adolescent that is too young to be a doctor. Or the next time you want to consult Google.
Musings from your grumpy Uncle/Brother Dave.
Weary.